As an increasing amount of information is being transmitted and stored electronically, and as the number of transactions performed electronically through networks increases, there is an ever increasing need to protect sensitive information in an electronic environment. This includes not only securing the storing and transmitting of information, but also securing access to the information. A common approach is to encrypt information using an encryption algorithm or cipher to encode information such that the information can only be decrypted or otherwise interpreted using a cryptographic key.
An integrated circuit device often has device-specific information, such as device identification and cryptographic keys stored in on-chip fuses. These fuses can occupy a significant amount of die area. Moreover, the fuse programming or burning process tends to be time-consuming and can increase the manufacturing cost of the device. Therefore, it is desirable to reduce the on-chip storage of cryptographic information for a device.